Chapter 14 #2
I turned my head so I didn’t have to look up at him. This wasn’t because I didn’t want to look at him, only because I was trying to think, and looking at Sean always scrambled my mind.
“My brother never had many friends,” I said, thinking back to the years we spent together in that trailer, before he did his first stint in county lockup and I moved out on my own.
“The only ones I can remember were complete losers, just like him. As far as I know, none of them made anything of their lives.”
“Okay,” Sean said. “It was just a theory I was working on.”
I leaned back and reached for my water glass, my mouth dry. “What do you mean, ‘theory?’ Why are you asking this?”
Sean took a half step backward. “Because I popped by that bodega again.”
“What?” That sounded risky. Possibly even dangerous. “When? Why would you do that? Bleu de Chanel man knows who you are.”
“Who?” Sean asked, drawing his eyebrows together.
“The guy from the bodega!” I cried, because, like, did he seriously need a reminder? “The one wearing Bleu de Chanel cologne. The guy who shot at you!”
Sean blinked once, then plowed on. “And when I did pop by…Rogue was there.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Really.”
Huh. That explained why he was asking about our brothers’ possible connection, but still…
“I guess that is kind of weird,” I admitted. “But it’s not that weird. I mean, it is a public market. He was probably shopping.”
Sean shook his head. “He wasn’t.”
“You’re sure?” I took a sip of water—tilting really took it out of you—then set the glass on the counter.
“Positive,” he said.
“That’s why you think there’s a connection between him and my brother?”
For the life of me, I couldn’t fathom what it could be. It sounded like Elli’s brother liked to play the ponies, or poker, or whatever. This might lead to a gambling addiction, which was bad news but not necessarily criminal.
My brother, on the other hand, was a drug dealer and sometimes a black market magician, if you could believe a word that came out of his mouth, and…
Oh, shit. Black market. Magician.
Remember, Ki-Ki? Find it and make it disappear. Just like I would.
And the note inside the bag, a note likely written for Braden: One more thing. You know what to do.
Now, I understood why someone had wanted to send that gun to Braden. He was supposed to make it disappear on the black market.
“Maybe,” Sean said. “Don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?”
Sean gave me an odd look because obviously I’d lost track of our conversation. “I don’t know if there’s a connection between Rogue and your brother.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right.”
Sean gave his head a little shake. “All I can say is that the same guy who abducted Elli showed up at your apartment, asking for his money. So, there’s definitely some connecting tissue there.”
Well, I couldn’t argue with that.
“Do you want me to visit my brother?” I asked. “I can ask him if he knows Evan Rogan.” And whether I correctly understood about the gun.
I didn’t want to mention my brother’s history in the black market to Sean, not when he’d already waded in too deep.
“We don’t need to telegraph our play just yet,” Sean said. “Let’s put a pin in all this for now. Everything except the part about you and Elli being honest with each other about your troubles.”
“Happy to put a pin in it,” I said. “Honestly, this whole thing is freaking me out.”
My phone pinged, and I pulled it from my pocket.
“Who is it?” Sean asked.
“Jen. She’s pissed, but she’s fine. So are Amy and Parvati. They’re at a bar with ‘the guys.’”
“Q, Rafe, and Bjorn,” Sean said, providing their names again.
“I assume so. No text from Elli yet. Should I check in on her?”
“She’s with Lukas. She’s fine.”
I took another sip of water, and my diamond bracelet slipped a couple inches down my arm.
Sean’s eyes went to it. “Is that from one of your sponsors?”
I set the glass down and followed his gaze to my wrist. “Actually, an old boyfriend gave it to me for college graduation.”
“Hmmm.”
“What?” I couldn’t read the narrow-eyed expression on his face. He wasn’t jealous, was he? He hadn’t even known me back then.
Sean held my hand and raised my wrist between us. “Looks expensive.”
“Jack came from money. He broke it off with me a few weeks later and didn’t bother to ask for it back.”
“Hmmm,” Sean said again.
“Now, what’s that supposed to mean?” I pulled my arm back, and he let go.
“Nothing!” He held his hands up in surrender.
“Admit it. You think I date above my station!”
“What? No,” Sean said, sounding defensive, but also chuckling a little, probably at my choice of words. “Of course not.”
“Why not?” I asked, because I sure thought it. More than thought it. I knew it. There was good reason why I’d never shown Jack photos of the trailer park where I’d grown up.
“First,” Sean said, “you deserve whatever you set your heart and mind to, if that’s rich guys who give you expensive gifts, then that’s what you should have.”
My lips parted. No one had ever told me I deserved anything in life. I’d always gone after what I wanted—no holds barred—but even my successes felt lucky. Never deserved.
“Second,” he said, looking at me intently. “I’m a dryad. I don’t believe in stations.”
“What do you believe in?”
“Roots.”
My heart squeezed into a small dark pellet. If I needed more proof we were a mismatch, there it was. “I don’t have any roots.”
“Everyone has roots.”
“Fine. But someone came along with a shovel and severed mine. Now I’m alone.”
His soft green eyes widened. “Kiera. You’re not alone.”
Again, I felt a wave of stunned silence overtake me. Even among friends, I had a hard time believing that was true.
But Sean met my disbelief with a sympathetic smile that—just like everything else about him—was as soft as it was intense.
A few times in the seven weeks since I’d met him, I’d worried that he could see straight into my soul.
On one occasion, after we’d all gotten together for a welcome-back-Lukas party, I’d even been compelled to do a little research into whether dryads were capable of not just physical tilts, but mental ones, too.
Like, could he be mentally tilting right into my mind? Was he pursuing me because he knew—even better than myself—how much I wanted him?
I never did find anything to justify my concern.
“Let’s put a pin in that one, too,” I said.
“Sure,” he agreed. “For now.”
I got off the stool, needing some space, and wandered into the living room area of the cabin. I’d already checked out his books the last time I was here. You could tell a lot about a person by what they read.
Sean was all about mystery and suspense, home renovation, and cooking.
The latter had surprised me. His kitchen was functional, but I didn’t get the sense he did a lot of entertaining.
Until recently, he hadn’t even owned kitchen stools.
Not until he wanted to see me drinking a margarita at his counter while he cooked.
I let my hand drift across the round fieldstones that made up the fireplace. “Tell me about your renovation plans.”
“The countertops are new. Nice, right?”
“They’re nice,” I agreed.
“I’m going to keep the knotty pine cabinets.”
“Very cabin-y,” I agreed.
“But I’m thinking they need new hardware. The next big job is the bathroom.”
“There’s a bathroom?” I asked, stopping at the edge of the fireplace. I glanced around the cabin.
“Of course,” he said, stifling a laugh.
“I assumed you had an outhouse.” In fact, in the back of my mind I’d been strategizing a way to get back to civilization before the need for a bathroom got too strong. I’d had one too many margaritas at the game.
He pointed toward the bedroom area. “There’s a fully plumbed bathroom behind that door.”
I’d noticed the door before but assumed it led to a closet. I went over to check it out.
Inside, it was paneled in more knotty pine. There was a toilet, a pedestal sink with shiny brass taps that had been there long enough to go out of style then come back in again, and a gorgeous clawfoot tub. The latter gave me images of flickering candles, champagne flutes, and bubble baths.
Not for Sean. But for me. Or maybe for both of us? I sized up the tub’s dimensions, then quickly pushed the thought away.
“The room’s kind of small,” he said from right behind me—so close I could feel his heat. “I thought about expanding it.”
His proximity sent shivers down my arms. The good kind. The very good kind. The kind that, a few days ago, would have told me to run like hell, but now I was having a hard time remembering why. I was happy to be wearing such a warm sweater.
“I like the tub,” I said.
“Thanks. I refurbished it the same time I did the kitchen sink.”
“You’re very handy.”
He slid his arm around my waist and held me close against his chest. “I like a project.”
“Am I a project?” I asked, never expecting him to take the bait.
“Totally,” he said, and his lips brushed the back of my ear.
I pulled out of his hold and turned to face him. “You answered that pretty fast.”
For a second, he looked startled by my about-face, then he shrugged. “Simple question, easy answer.”
“I was joking!” I put my hands on my hips, warning him to watch his step.
He shot me one of his shit-eating grins. “Then you should have made that more clear.”
“How am I a project?”
“Let’s see…” He cupped my shoulders in his warm, strong hands.
His eyes roamed my face before sliding down the side of my neck to my left shoulder. His thumb stroked over my collarbone. “It takes a lot of work to convince you to have dinner with me, and when I finally do, you gaslight me into thinking you never agreed.”
“I never heard you ask the question!” I threw my arms out in exasperation. “If I responded, I didn’t know what I was responding to.”
“Like I said. A project. Don’t get me started on how much work it’s been, getting you to admit that you like me.”
“I do like you, it’s just—”
He put his hand over my mouth. “Stop. Don’t say anything more. You’ll ruin it.”
I slapped his hand away. “Don’t shut me up.”
He laughed. “Don’t make bullshit comments, especially when I may have finally scored a point with you.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“I know it was going to be more B.S. about why we’d never work.”
I clamped my mouth shut. He had me there.
“Then, of course, there’s the keeping you safe part.”
“I never asked you to keep me safe.”
The corner of his mouth quirked, and he kept right on talking. “That’s practically a full-time job that causes me to do un-cool things like tilt into your house while you’re sleeping, so I apolo—”
“All right.” I put my hand up between us and took a step back.
“I’m glad you brought that up because I’m sorry I got mad about that.
Under normal circumstances, you’re right, totally un-cool.
But there was nothing normal about what was going on, and I can see now it was naive of me to think I could handle the situation on my own.
Even at my apartment just now, you knew better than to come in alone. You brought Lukas, and…”
“Q, Rafe, and Bjorn.’
I nodded. “It’s good to have a team.”
“Yes, it is.” He closed the few inches I’d put between us and took me in his arms again.
“I should have let you be on my team,” I said, wrapping my arms around his firm waist.
“I’m glad to hear you say that.”
“I’ve just never had one before,” I admitted.
“You have your girls.”
“I’m new to that posse. Definitely the outsider.”
Sean rested his chin on the top of my head. “I doubt any of those women would describe you that way.”
The flannel covering the hard wall of his chest was soft against my cheek. “You don’t know that.”
“Actually,” he said, “I do.”
I tipped my head back to look up at him.
“When Elli was interviewing me, I may have dug into that particular subject.”
“You were supposed to be talking about you,” I reminded him.
“I did. But I also used the time to learn more about you.”
I braced. “What did you learn?”
“Elli confirmed a lot of things I’d observed for myself.”
Oh god. What had he observed? Was I subconsciously putting trash out into the universe? “Like what?”
“Like…you’re honest.”
I made a humorless laugh. Weren’t we just talking about me not telling Elli the truth?
“Honest but secretive,” he amended.
Touché, I thought.
“And Elli confirmed that you’d bend over backward for a friend in need.”
“She said that?” That surprised me, and I tried to think back to a time when I would have given her that impression.
“Yes,” Sean said, “and what you did for your brother was further proof.”
I rolled my eyes. “You mean, what I tried to do for my brother.”
Sean made a soft groan, like he thought I was being ridiculous, but I knew better. I’d let Braden down. I’d possibly put him in danger.
“The point I’m trying to make,” Sean said, “is that karma is real. You do good by those women so they’ll do good by you. Loyalty is worth its weight in gold, and those women have your back.”
“Maybe,” I conceded. “At least, for now.”
He leaned away without letting me go.
The concerned look on his face made my head spin. Nobody had ever cared about me like he did. Not my brother. Not my parents. I didn’t even have grandparents.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. “For now?”
I shrugged and looked away. “When people find out about how much garbage goes on in my family, they tend to find somewhere else to be.”
Sean was silent for a while, and his assessing gaze was so heavy, I had to keep my eyes focused on the wall.
Finally, he said, “That’s why you didn’t want to tell Elli about what happened at the bodega? You were afraid she’d cut you loose?”
I glanced back at him, and his concerned expression had morphed into something even softer. Not pity, but understanding.
His arms tightened around me, and his thumbs stroked my lower back. God, that felt good.
Too good. My toes curled inside my shoes.
“She already knows my brother is in prison,” I explained. “I didn’t want her to learn that it was way worse than that. And I didn’t want her to worry.”
“And with that,” he said, his beautiful eyes looking straight into my soul while his warm hands curled around the sides of my waist, “we’re back to why you keep so many secrets. Our conversation has come full circle.”
“Is that why I’m feeling dizzy?” I asked.
“Probably the effects of the tilt.”
“I don’t think so,” I murmured, then I did something really, really stupid. I rose up on my toes, and I kissed him.